A New Hampshire parent has asked the Goffstown School Board to remove Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008) from her daughter's class, claiming that it gave her 11-year-old nightmares and could numb other students to the effects of violence. Although Tracy LaSalle has yet to read the bestseller herself, on September 20 she requested the removal of the book from her daughter's seventh-grade class at Mountain View Middle School due to its violent subject matter. The book is being read aloud during a reading period for those who choose not to take a foreign language class. The first novel of a trilogy, The Hunger Games involves teens who are forced by a postapocalyptic "Big Brother"-like government to fight a televised battle to the death. "Mrs. LaSalle stated the main character is the only one of twenty-four children that survives in the book, that children are being killed for entertainment, pitted one against the other in a game," read Goffstown school board minutes from September 20. "Mrs. LaSalle asked what this book teaches students as far as honor, ethics, and morals. Mrs. LaSalle stated there is no lesson in this book except if you are a teenager and kill twenty-three other teenagers, you win the game and your family wins." Philip Pancoast, a Goffstown school board member and parent who did read the book, is questioning LaSalle's push to have the title removed. "It's your standard variety YA-fare," says Pancoast, a parent with a junior at Goffstown High School. "A fair reading of Old Yeller (HarperCollins, 1956) would likely cause a child to have nightmares of the death of the dog." To censorship expert Pat Scales, the main concern is one parent attempting to set policy for the children of others. And this challenge, which comes on the heels of the American Library Association's (ALA) Banned Book Week, is a cautionary tale other parents should note, she adds. "When a parent objects to a book being taught, a lot of school districts say a parent can take a child out," says Scales, a former school librarian and member of ALA's Intellectual Freedom Committee. "And a lot of parents have an objection because they say their child is being singled out. But you have already singled your child out. And no parent has a right to select the curriculum." Pancoast says the Goffstown School Board forwarded LaSalle's request to Superintendent Stacey Buckley, who already has gathered a committee to review the book, according to the Goffstown News. Principal Jim Hunt, school librarian Clare Yerbur, and teachers will be a part of that group, which has 30 days to issue their findings. Although the school district requests that formal book challenges be handled by filling out a request for reconsideration form, LaSalle has yet to do so. To date, The Hunger Games is still being read in class, and LaSalle's daughter is removed from class during that time. Three copies of the book remain in the school library. School Board Chair Keith Allard and Superintendent Buckley did not return any phone calls or emails. Still, Scales worries about how parents deal with what they feel is objectionable material at school and suggests supporting students rather than seeking to censor. "I think parents should always have an open door," says Scales. "And a teacher should be open with a parent, and perhaps invite [the parent] to read along with them in class. But if you have one parent trying to dictate policy for all children, maybe all these other parents should speak up."